On impulse, Lauren and I went out for a short walk — around just a few blocks — as the grey Spring afternoon shaded to dusk. On a second impulse, I grabbed the camera on the way out the door.

In our local community garden, here’s (I think) a chard.

That was in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant park, small but nice and apparently never not used. Also this old blackened fruit tree, we’re a bit past the fruit-blossom peak for this year. Nice to see I’m not the only old citizen trying to brighten things up.

Now we’re walking up a locally-main street called Main Street or “The Main” if you’re trying to sound hip. Someone put work into that window! I’ve bought my daughter a couple of cool birthday presents from the store behind it. My thanks to the building across the street for providing a dark background reflection.

Back to the next block over from ours. A while ago a bunch of people were building little fairy/elf/hobbit villages at the bottoms of the big old trees. This isn’t that. What is it?

The colors of the natural surfaces are real.

Cameras · When I shot these, it was getting dark but I didn’t think much, mostly just pointed and shot. (Fiddled with the aperture dial a bit.) Then I came home and pulled them into Lightroom and didn’t need to do really anything about colors. A bit of contrast and highlights here and there. Oh, and fairly brutal cropping, especially on that fruit-tree-flowers pic. Because like I said, I didn’t think very much when I was shooting and I didn’t have to because on a Twenties camera you don’t.

I could take that heavily-cropped fruit-tree picture and print it big enough to occupy any domestic wall in your place and yeah, there’d be grain but it wouldn’t bother your eyes.

Anyhow, modern cameras are pretty great. The lowest ISO in today’s set is 2500 and the highest is 6400; the apertures range from 2.8 to 5.6. Bet you can’t tell the differences. My camera is a reasonably modern Fujifilm but not remotely bleeding-edge in camera tech. (Note: 35mm F1.4, now all the Fuji fanfolk are smiling and nodding.)

Anyhow, there are very very few photographers for whom the camera they carry is the limiting factor in the goodness of their pictures. Certainly not me.

Consider getting a camera. Used is fine, anything built in the last five years, maybe more, will effortlessly take brilliant pictures in almost any conditions. Sure, your phone can take great shots too, but the feeling of walking along with something that fits your hand and you only have to press one physical button once, that feeling, it helps you see the good pictures when they happen.

Then go out after and take a walk in the Spring dusk.